


Place Where People Have Fun

by elumish



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3994150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney had been in love with John Sheppard since the day after his helicopter was almost shot out of the sky by the drone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Place Where People Have Fun

Rodney had been in love with John Sheppard since the day after his helicopter was almost shot out of the sky by the drone. Rodney was sitting alone in the cafeteria, eating his improbably dry cake, when the then-Major dropped a tray of food down on the table, slumped into a chair, and asked, “What is there to do for fun around here?” like Rodney wasn’t the most hated person on the outpost. Other than Kavanagh, but anyone with a brain hated Kavanagh, so that didn’t count.

He knew he tended to fall in love too fast and too hard, and that it crashed and burned as soon as he tried to do anything about it. But he would never actually act on it. Even if Sheppard wasn’t straight as a signpost, Rodney would never do anything to jeopardize his position on the Expedition. They needed him and, more, Rodney needed him. And he loved him too much to hurt him like that.

So Rodney let the feelings fade into the background and pursued other people. Women, because he honestly didn’t care which gender he went after. And because it felt, absurdly, a little bit less like cheating, even though he wasn’t actually in a relationship with Sheppard and never would be.

But through those relationships, he stayed true to Sheppard. Because being with Sheppard—even just sitting next to him watching a movie, or bickering, or slogging through mud and plants and God only knew what else—made him a better person. It made him a person he actually wanted to be around, and God knew, he didn’t want to be around anyone.

He seemed to hurt people less when he was around Sheppard, because Sheppard stopped him from saying the truly awful things that popped into his brain and—usually—out his mouth. Because he was a bad person, or, really, a morally neutral person who had a tendency to do bad things when there was no one to stop him. But Sheppard always—usually—stopped him, and more than that, Sheppard made Rodney want to stop himself.

But when John Sheppard set his tray down across from Rodney’s and started eating the truly disgusting meatloaf, apparently completely oblivious to the fact usually that not even Rodney wanted to eat lunch with Rodney, all he could say was, “This isn’t a place where people have fun.”


End file.
